At present, alongside display stands which are designed and produced ad hoc on a small scale in order to support specific products, various models of display stands of the modular type are known and may be easily transported so they can be rapidly assembled at the desired exhibition site for the presentation of articles or services.
These display stands may consist of simple supports for advertising panels or banners or may be formed by more complex structures, with a column, wall or stand-like form or being varyingly configured so as to support by means of support surfaces, shelves or simple hooking members the articles to be presented.
Known examples are simple column-like display stands, in particular for distributing brochures (brochure stands), which are formed by a support column on which one or more brochure holders are removably fixed (FIG. 17A).
In accordance with the example in FIG. 17B, display stands formed by two columns c having, formed between them, a framework i forming a wall for supporting an advertising panel or banner t, are also known.
The columns c rest on the ground by means of special feet p and are preferably made of several parts which are joined together by connecting elements e. The latter (see FIG. 17C) are inserted inside grooves in the bottom part of the column c′ to which they are fixed by means of at least one pin a and are able to be inserted by means of engagement inside the top part of the column c″.
This display stand may be arranged, once disassembled, inside a suitcase for easy transportation.
This display stand has the drawback that it envisages not particularly practical assembly of the columns and offers little versatility for forming different configurations and creating different advertising areas.
The manufacturers of display stands on the one hand are required to produce a support structure for display stands which is as far as possible standard for all the models of display stand, in order to limit the number of production parts and the warehouse stocks, and on the other hand need to satisfy the specific requirements of the client companies by providing specific solutions for the display of specific products.
The display stand market is aimed at a large number of very different companies who require a large variety of display stand models which are personalized for the individual product, but each of which is required for a limited number of items.
With the display stand design described above and with those which are currently available on the market it is possible to provide in a simple and practical manner only a few configurations and therefore it is possible to satisfy the requirements of only a well-defined clientele, unless the model and therefore the display stand structure are changed.
As mentioned above, various companies have placed on the market their own range of display stands, each of which is able to provide a specific spatial configuration and consequently satisfy a specific need to display a product or service.
For this purpose, various solutions have been proposed: column display stands (FIG. 17D), booth-like display stands with a support surface (FIG. 17E), banner or magazine display stands (FIG. 17F) or display stands with other forms suitable for mobile marketing able to interact with a specific target clientele in order to promote a given product or service in sales environments, in public spaces, at trade fairs or during particular events.
In order to achieve these different configurations, the display stands of the type known hitherto often use structural parts which generally have a tubular shape (see FIG. 17G) which can be connected together in a varying manner by means of joints of the type described in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,180 or which use metal profiles which are provided externally with grooves inside which it is possible to engage easily, in a retaining relationship, engaging parts able to support the products or act as a connection for other structural parts.
FIG. 17H shows a cross-section through a profile of a display stand of the known type with a gripping element Z engaged inside two grooves S provided.
Therefore, the display stand solutions known hitherto, in addition to having fairly high production costs, are difficult to use in a versatile manner in order to provide configurations which are able to display products and services which are different from each other and with different presentation requirements.
Moreover, all the solutions presented hitherto have proved to be not very practical, difficult to assemble and disassemble, difficult to transport and with excessively large dimensions.